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Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Germany .. knuckling under?

Angela Merkel seems to be ready to consider throwing in the towel, saying that a plan to extend operating licenses will be put off three months and that two reactors will shut down in Germany.

Her statement includes the blurb that if the Japanese cannot make reactors safe with all their advanced techniques, the whole question of nuclear safety arises. Or something like that. She must have forgotten the Germans' long and successful nuclear energy program.

Below, a photo from the APRA collection, originally UPI International.This is the RWE Kahl power reactor plant, seen on 8/11/59 during construction. Construction of this 15 MWe net plant had begun in 1958; the plant went online in '61 and ran until 1985.